Grim Dawn - An ARPG from Crate (ex Iron Lore aka Titan Quest devs)

Indeed. I appreciate it. I’ve been playing a bit lately and it’s enjoyable and informative to hear your experiences, @Rock8man.

Just a quick note on something I noticed last night.

Since I was doing Act 1 Elite difficulty, I was going up against lots of zombies and little green goblin type of enemies that would rush you. I love how all their momentum is coming toward you, and your bullet hits them SO hard that it doesn’t just kill them or halt their momentum, it actually pushes their head back away from you as the rest of their body flails underneath. So you get the satisfaction of head shots constantly killing people with one bullet each, and the satisfaction of your bullets feeling more like cannonballs. This is the reason this is the most addictive ARPG I’ve played since Diablo 2.

My Commando (well, my Demonologist with Menhir’s Will) is now 66 and in act 2 elite and the drops are getting a lot better. So continue on.

I finished Act 1 this morning, but I still didn’t get my fifth inventory bag. What gives?

I guess I could go back to Act 5/6 on Normal/Veteran, since I didn’t get the inventory bag that I made a detour for after all. Level 62 now. Getting close to being the highest level character I have, the highest currently being 65 I think.

My Blast shield is now max level. That still didn’t stop me from dying to the Warden once though. I have to remember I’m not a tank, despite the blast shield and the prismatic diamond. I still need to run around.

What really works in getting big bosses down quickly is this:

Lay down Thermite mines.
Boss steps on mine.
Boss’s fire resist is lowered by 24%.
Hit boss with my normal damage, which includes lots of fire damage.

Did you kill the bug queen? I think that gives up a bag. Not sure what the others are.

I got all 4 of the ones from Normal difficulty, yes, including the bug queen. I think the fifth bag is supposed to come on Elite.

Googling only shows me 4 extra bags, for a total of 5:

  1. Devil’s Crossing, Barnabas: And Not a Drop to Drink
  2. Arkovian Foothills, Bernard: Clearing the Way
  3. Homestead, Douglass Sullivan Oldbarrow: Culling the Swarm
  4. Fort Ikon, Weapon Master Edric: Precious Resources

If there’s a 5th additional bag (so six total), I haven’t been able to find it thus far. Maybe my google fu is weak.

Interesting. That implies that you start off with a bag already. I’ll have to check on that by creating a new character.

As for that list, I remember doing 1, 2, 3, 4 for sure on this run. Maybe I need to do the one that got bugged again on Elite to unlock the bag.

I’ll try to remember to check my Warder when I get home. I haven’t played her in quite a while, but she’s L85 (which I assume was the previous level cap?) and has done nearly all of the quests through Ultimate. I’ll see how many bags she has just to make sure we’re looking at the correct amount.

Pretty positive you do not start with a bag, just your main inventory.

Yeah, sorry if I was not typing clearly. I mean 4 extra bags as in extra to the inventory you begin with.

EDIT: Yep, my Warder has 5 of the expanded inventory bags. The wikis aren’t clear on where the 5th one comes from.

I kept playing Act 2, and I got the 5th bag in the Act 2 quest Clear the Way. So there we go. Both my characters that had the fifth bag in the past had also made it past that point. Mystery solved!

I am agonizing over all these purple equipment choices. Which one I choose changes my character so much. One set of purple pants would be much more defensive compared to my offensive pants right now. One belt I could wear would increase my defensive ability by a lot, but change my resistances by a lot, so I’d have to change other equipment around to compensate.

I’m just going to take the lazy way as usual and just keep plowing through with what I’m wearing until I start having trouble.

Ok, so Act 6 is really excellent so far. Malmouth, or whatever is called, is brilliant. The outskirts were great, and now I’ll be heading into the city itself.

I’m so tired of inventory handling though. I’ve switched more and more of my playing to the controller now, and I just switch to mouse and keyboard for the drudgery of inventory management, and deciding what to get rid of in my stash so that I can fit the latest blue or purple thing I found. I’m sick of it.

I think it’s time to change my loot filter again. Only blues and above from now on, and I’ll just carry everything I find from now on. Hopefully I’ll get to the end of the game before my inventory fills all the way up. Once my inventory fills up, I’m done I think.

I just hate inventory management in these kinds of games.

You’re doing Malmouth for the first time on Elite or normal?

I hate the thought of doing the last part of Malmouth again. Really did not enjoy the last couple of areas.

Doing it for the first time on Normal (Veteran).

My necromancer couldn’t get through Act 5 (kept dying too much), but my Purifier had a pretty easy time of it. Maxed out Poison resist, high resists on nearly everything else. That helps a lot. Plus the fact that I’m not a melee character really helps in Act 5. Not having to rely on Pets to kill stuff helps a lot too.

I made it through the sewers, and am ready to go back up to the surface next.

You will want to get your aether resistance up for it as well. Some real pain in the ass bosses with high aether attacks.

59% Aether resist. Not bad, I think?

Wow you take inventory management much more seriously than I do! No wonder you are getting sick of it. I avoid the headache by only keep blues and above, and they have to be a set piece or add lots of skill bonuses.

And you would think 59% is more than enough, but for some reason with aether, it never is (either that or I am reading what is killing me wrong).

Just to be clear, most of the inventory there is just crafting materials. The rings/amulets/medals in there are just starter stuff I always keep in there. They’re good for new characters starting out to get a nice bump, nothing special. The crafting material page has the extra room for that stuff, so why not use it? I’ve been surprised each time I start a new character how good those little low level rings/amulets I have in there are for lowbies, even though they look pathetic when I look at their attributes now.

This morning, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember how to keep going with my current quest. When I went through the latest portal in Malmouth, it looked like I’d uncovered the whole map, and it was all dead ends. So where was I supposed to go? In the early morning haze before coffee and getting ready for work, I honestly couldn’t remember. (Answer: There is a point in the north side of town, I remember now, where there is a green portal to the next area).

So instead I went and did the first quest request for Balbouthtown, or whatever their name was. And that was enough to give me access to some of their equipment from their vendor. Ugh. More inventory stuff. The next quest they gave me will have me looking for three enemies throughout Act 5 again. I’m not sure I’m looking forward to that one.

If you are low on stash space you could always use the Grim Dawn Stash mod. Not used it myself but think it basically gives you unlimited stash space.